A family’s dream holiday was ruined after they were left stranded due to a booking blunder.
Darren Tanser shared his nightmare experience on TikTok, @darrentanser, after he paid £6,000 for trip to Turkey.
He raged: ‘LoveHolidays are an absolute joke, I recommend none of you ever book with them at all.
‘I spent 425 minutes throughout yesterday, which is seven hours, on the phone to LoveHolidays on and off, they never called me back once for any issue, I had to continuously call them.’
The family had arrived at the hotel at 5am, only to be told their booking ‘hadn’t been secured’.
Darren claimed they didn’t receive a new hotel until midnight, before going on to explain his experience further.
‘So I spent hours on the phone discussing new hotels with them, I gave them ten different hotel options that we’d be happy to transfer to,’ he fumed.
At 2pm that afternoon, Darren managed to agree on a hotel with LoveHolidays but the trouble didn’t stop.
Darren Tanser (pictured) shared his nightmare experience on TikTok , @darrentanser, after he paid £6,000 for trip to Turkey
The family had arrived at the hotel at 5am, only to be told their booking ‘hadn’t been secured’ (stock image)
He went on to reveal he received an email saying payment was ‘taking a bit longer than expected’ for his new accommodation.
Hours after the call, Darren was then told the booking was ‘still being processed’.
‘Baring in mind at this point, we’re sat in a hotel that we don’t have a booking for, the hotel don’t want us there. We have no use of amenities, we can’t shower, we can’t brush our teeth, we can’t do nothing and we’ve been here since 5am at this point and we’re just stuck at the hotel,’ he said.
The holidaymaker also shared that his son had undergone ‘two major brain surgeries’ which complicated the situation as he had to make sure he wasn’t ‘over fatigued’ or ‘dehydrated’.
‘We keep relaying this to them and they don’t care,’ the tourist added.
At 8pm that evening, Darren was told by LoveHolidays the booking wouldn’t process at that particular hotel because the ‘payment wouldn’t go through’.
The family were offered another hotel which they refused because they had stayed previously and got food poisoning.
‘We spent weeks and months researching the hotel we went to, to make sure it was perfect for the money we were spending,’ he raged.
Darren claimed they didn’t receive a new hotel until midnight, before going on to explain his experience further
‘We spent weeks and months researching the hotel we went to, to make sure it was perfect for the money we were spending,’ he raged (stock image)
The tourist explained the company kept rejecting his alternative hotel suggestions ‘because of money’.
He added: ‘The problem was, trying to book a hotel for the night we want to stay is going to be more expensive, it’s just how it is.’
Eventually, at 10pm that evening, Darren was sent to one of his hotels of choice.
However, the nightmare didn’t end there. The Uber that LoveHolidays booked to transport the family to the new accommodation was cancelled and they had to arrange a taxi themselves.
Though they eventually arrived at the hotel, Darren felt it wasn’t quite up to scratch compared to their original booking.
‘I think we checked in at midnight last night into a room that is nowhere near as luxurious as the room we had,’ he explained.
‘We booked a family suite with a swim-up room at the hotel we were staying at and now we’re just in a bog standard room with two single beds and a double bed all in the same room.
‘And rather than the beautiful views of looking over the beach and the pool I am overlooking what looks like a garage roof from the balcony.’
Though they eventually arrived at the hotel, Darren felt it wasn’t quite up to scratch compared to their original booking (stock image)
He noted that his new hotel was ‘highly rated’ but felt it wasn’t as ‘calm’ as the original.
‘We told them, the kids and us had been awake by this point for like 43 hours with shower, no amenities, we couldn’t easily get food, drink or anything, we were stuck at a hotel in the middle of nowhere and they just did not care at all,’ Darren claimed.
Despite the bad experience, Darren said his family were going to ‘make the most’ of the remaining days of their holiday.
A loveholidays spokesperson said: ‘We are very sorry that Mr Tanser and his family’s experience fell short of our usual high standards after their hotel overbooked.
‘Our On Holiday Support team was in touch with Mr Tanser on the day of arrival to book the family into an alternative five-star hotel, and we recognise this process took longer than usual due to limited availability in the destination.
‘We have been in touch with Mr Tanser to apologise for the stress and inconvenience caused, and have offered him a significant compensation package to make up for this and cover the out-of-pocket expenses he incurred.’
